MY FAIR LADY
THE SCHEDULED FILM for Friday, 4 June 2010 is My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964). Its director, Cukor, was one of those studio directors who benefited from the Auteur Theory, as Auteurists discovered deeper meanings in his mise-en-scene and his sympathy with women. (Cukor was homosexual, perhaps partly explaining his sympathy with women. Clark Gable had him fired from Gone with the Wind [1939] because he felt that Cukor paid more attention to Vivien Leigh [who played Scarlett O'Hara] than to him as Rhett Butler. Victor Fleming replaced Cukor on the film.)
My Fair Lady was a costly but also controversial movie. Rights for the legendary Lerner and Loewe Broadway production (then the longest running Broadway show in history) cost the then huge sum of five million dollars.
Despite the fact that Julie Andrews co-starred as Eliza Doolittle in the original Broadway production, the studio decided to take no chances at the box-office and chose instead, Audrey Hepburn, then at the height of her popularity and a box-office guarantee. (Notice that even though Rex Harrison was the star of the Broadway production he receives second billing, after Hepburn, in the film! That's the meaning of star power. The studio had more faith in Hepburn's box-office appeal than in Harrison's.)
But the choice became quickly controversial, and even more so when it was revealed that Hepburn's singing voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon. There should have been nothing shocking about this revelation since it had long been the custom in Hollywood to dub vocals. But many believed that this revelation further weakened Hepburn's chances at Oscar time. In fact she wasn't even nominated, while Andrews, the sentimental favorite, not only was nominated for Mary Poppins but won.
The film in general suffered by a largely lukewarm response from the critics. Although Cukor directed, many believed this was not a personal project but a studio project, controlled more by the studio and producer than the director. Besides, stage properties are often an encumbrance to a movie director, saddled with expectations from audiences familiar with the original stage version, especially in the case of a legendary property such as the Lerner-Loewe musical.
The film does have long lapses of limited inspiration (especially in the staging of the songs), but (all things considered) it's a reputable achievement. Hepburn's performance is, I think, better than critics gave her credit for. Most critics of course applauded Hepburn's transformation but not her Cockney role before the transformation. Of course Hepburn could play a sophisticated woman in her sleep; the question was whether she could pull off the part of Eliza before her change. But I think it's the audiences who saw the glamor beneath Hepburn's rags, despite a convincing performance, hardly Hepburn's fault.
Our focus is mainly on editing, though the production design and costume design are also noteworthy. Editing is often an invisible art. Unlike cinematography, clearly visible on the screen, editing involves what to leave in as well as what to leave out, and of course only people familiar with the production (director, actors, writers, etc.) could know this. But on average a film involves a ratio of screen time to coverage of 10 or even 20 to 1, which means for every minute of screen time 20 were left out!
But the viewer sees only the film's final print and doesn't see the special arrangement of the story that the editor chose or the many invisible cuts on action (continuity editing). Even elliptical cuts may seem more the function of the screenplay than the editing; while performances are credited to the actors, though the editor chooses the best takes, chooses when to focus on a person speaking or a person listening, or even creates a reaction in one scene that was filmed for another scene!
Often film textbooks focus mainly on obvious editing choices, intercutting, parallel editing, etc. So I deliberately chose a film where much of the editing is pedestrian and probably invisible to most viewers. This allows for an optimal understanding of what editing is, which can be applied to most (98%) films. Hopefully these study pictures will help students practice what to look for in the editing of mainstream movies.
Editors choose the best takes.
They match on action (continuity editing).
They cut for impact.
The cut for scale (long to close, close to long), to isolate a character, emphasize an emotion, or remind the viewer of the larger context (for example, a large dinner party).
They cut elliptically in order to save screen time.
They use cutaway shots to emphasize a person or an object.
They use form cuts, sound bridges, graphic matches, dissolves or fades in order to bridge scenes and make symbolic connections between them.
They linger on a scene to force the viewer to feel a certain emotion, instead of cutting quickly to the next scene.
They use music or no music (usually in agreement with composer and director) to heighten a scene.
They use audio-visual counterpoint to make a point (a cut to a character when the word "hate" is spoken by another character links that word to the listening character, etc.).
They decide whether to focus on a person speaking or a person listening.
They establish a place or location with establishing shots, then cut to different parts of a group or location or remind us of the whole scene.
They lengthen or shorten shots to change the rhythm of a scene.
And, finally (but not least) they decide to leave a sequence shot or long take untouched, because they know that the scene says more shot the way it was than broken down into separate shots. Why fix it if it's not broke?
Regarding the original musical, what can one say about one of the finest musicals in history, a perfect blend of lyrics and music, of drama and wit, of book (plot) and characters?
Yet who would have thought that a story about a woman learning how to speak good English could become a musical of such wit and charm, not to mention inspired melody? Honestly, if I had money and someone asked me to bankroll a musical adaptation of a story about a woman learning how to speak good English I would have dismissed the project as absurd: "How can you make an entertaining musical about a subject like that?"
And surely the title itself, My Fair Lady, has got to be one of the most inspired titles in Broadway history (the original George Bernard Shaw play was called Pygmalion).
A final comment should be made about how the composer, Frederick Loewe, revolutionized Broadway melody. This is a perfect example of how necessity is the mother of invention. Faced with the reality that chosen star, Rex Harrison, was unable to sing, Loewe created a kind of sprechgesang, as it's called in German: a kind of talk-singing, for his songs, which has since become much imitated. The rest, as they say, is history.
Regarding the actual viewing of the film, this is a film class not an MTV class, so viewing the entire film is not necessary. Most of the Study Pictures pertain to the first half of the film anyway.
Students SHOULD NOT cut a class to see the entire film. Your professor has a right to your attendance just like I have a right to your attendance.
However, if students have no other classes on Friday afternoon then they will enjoy seeing the complete film. Other students, if they choose, can finish the film on their own. Since the movie DVD is on two sides, this can be easily done by asking the desk staff to play the second side.
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